


By Design

by florahart



Category: Brave (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:51:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This treat is to a prompt about why the witch carves so many bears.</p>
    </blockquote>





	By Design

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silencedancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silencedancer/gifts).



> This treat is to a prompt about why the witch carves so many bears.

This time. This time it will be different.

Gràinne settles into the hollow, her knife sharp in her left hand, and runs he thumb over the bark. It's a lovely piece of light bright ash that will be a falcon when she's done. She can see it in her mind's eye, soaring and free with delicate feathers and wide wings spread to catch the draft. This time, there will be no changes midway; she's determined.

She turns the limb over in her hands--one end is still fresh, and the smell of it is sharp in her nose. The other is weathered and sealed by wind and sun. She turns it again, the sets it on end before starting to coax with her blade. This bend, here: that will be the outstretched wing. And this, the majestic tail, feathers delineated with scrapes of the very tip. Yes.

The rock face is warm against her back, and Gràinne chips away all afternoon, roughly carving out the shape and then going back to the details as the breeze picks up and the sun begins to sink. It's coming along quite nicely.

And then she turns the piece over and lets out a gasp. No! Those are meant to be feet, not fangs, not a muzzle to tear the flesh. And no! The wings are all wrong! 

She sighs and sets it down on the earth beside her. Even looking at it the other way again, she can't unsee the bear.

There's something unwell in her.

The sun steals down low, its rays no longer finding her face or the rock that's growing cold behind her, and Gràinne opens her bag for the first time, plunging her knife furiously into the apple she brought for celebration. It cuts through easily--too easily; when she lifts the apple from the bad, she fails to realize the blade is all the way through and as she slaps it into her hand, no longer celebratory but she cannot help that she is hungry even in failure, the blade pierces her palm.

It doesn't hurt, and she stares at it, wondering, as she pulls half an inch of iron from her flesh. She has nothing with her to bind the wound, and it seems clean enough, so after a moment she determines to ignore it and carefully eats the apple from around the sharp edge.

When she picks up her erstwhile falcon, her fingers drip first onto it, and the smoothed-off edge presses right up against the cut--and _that_ , that _burns_. She drops the knife and the apple core where she sits, and watches the cut seal up against the bear's ears, her fingers caught in its teeth, her thumb loose against a paw that's outstretched.

Eventually, she looks up again, and the sky is dark. The moon has risen, full and white in the chilly air, and Gràinne picks up her knife, shaking loose the remains of the apple and hastily wiping it in the grass, noticing for the first time the claw embedded deep in the hilt, wondering that she's examined the knife a thousand times without noticing before.

The carving, she leaves, her imperfect bear, and she wraps her cloak round her and scrambles down onto the path and heads home. Her mother stands in the door, brows knit with concern, but Gràinne doesn't even hear her ask where she's been. All she hears is the crack of wood falling fresh for her to find and carve tomorrow, and all she knows is, soon she won't stay in this house any more.

She has other places to be.


End file.
